Rules of Engagement
by Ironfingers
Summary: I should punch whoever said this would be easy money in the face...
1. Questions

Disclaimer: While this story uses some real world settings and organizations, all characters and events depicted are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to real world people or events is entirely coincidental. All original characters are property of Ironfingers. Do not use or reproduce without permission.

**Episode 1: Questions**

My eyelids felt like bricks. I could hardly lift them, not that I wanted to. There must have been dust shoved in my face or something; every time I opened my eyes, it felt like a rabid cat was clawing at their surface. I was tired. I must have been awake for days. But I guess that's to be expected. It's hard to sleep with someone beating your feet with a steel pipe and punching you in the face every few hours.

"I will ask you again. Who do you work for?" The disembodied voice spoke again. My eyes half-closed, I could see nothing but shadow around me. The harsh whiteness of the interrogation lamp drowned everything else out.

"Whoever pays me," I stated flatly.

"Wrong answer," the voice said. Immediately my head snapped backwards and my vision swam. I think he broke my nose. Gah, blood. I could taste it in my mouth and I could feel it streaming down my face. Definitely broken…

"You are making this much harder than it needs to be. Just tell me who you work for, and we'll let you go."

"I told you already, asshole," I spat. God that was a lot of blood. I spit out more before continuing. "Do you listen with your fists, too?"

"Sarcasm will get you nowhere," he said.

I tightened my gut, waiting for the blow to come there. Instead, my head snapped backwards again. Damn, guessed wrong. The sharp line between light and dark grew fuzzy. My head was starting to hurt and I could feel the swelling around my left eye from the blows. As my vision cleared, I could make out my interrogator's hand. A biohazard triskeleon was tattooed on the back of the palm. Wanker.

"What… do… you… want?" I said gingerly. My speech was slurring. I already had a mild concussion. I had a feeling this wasn't going to end well.

"Simple. I want you to tell me who your employer is."

"Could you be more specific?" I asked. The man growled.

"Hey!" I quickly added. "Easy there, killer…"

The next blow was to the gut. I totally should have seen it coming. I panted for breath. I was fit enough to take the blows, but that didn't stop my body from feeling it. If I ever got out of this, I'd sue for extra workman's comp.

"I'm… just… saying…" I said between coughs, "I've had many… bosses… over the past few years…"

"Which one of them hired you to kill Abdullah?"

"I load trucks and pull security," I said through clenched teeth. That really did hurt a lot. Nausea from the concussion didn't help, either. I was dizzy. Suddenly, I felt the bile rising in my throat. Oh, joy. I leaned forward and blew the day's meal onto the floor in front of my chair. Between coughs and chokes, I managed to get out, "I'm a bodyguard, not an assassin."

"But it was you who killed Abdullah. We have incontrovertible proof." It took me a second to get what he'd said, the guy's accent was so thick. In spite of that, he seemed to have a masterful command of the English language; amazing that a meathead like him could even pull that off.

"What is it? DNA? Fingerprints? The murder weapon?" I panted. "Or are you just looking for a scapegoat so you could sweep this under the rug?"

I saw this one coming. I tightened my gut and took the hit with enough wind left in me to keep talking. "Listen, pal, I don't know who you are," I said with renewed strength. "I don't know where I am, but I do know that I didn't kill your boss."

I heard him draw back to hit me again, but I quickly interjected. "But I can find out who did."

The man hesitated. I smiled to myself. I had gained the initiative. "I have connections. I can find your man."

"How?"

"Like I said, connections. But I can't get to those connections unless you untie me and stop beating me up."

"I will carefully consider your offer."

"Thank you. Now would you mind…" The next one I didn't see coming. My head snapped backwards and I could hear my jaw crack with the impact. I'd be feeling that one in the morning.

"You honestly want me to believe that?" the burly man shouted. He was careful to stay out of the light. I could never see his face, only his arms; arms the size of a gorilla. "Just how stupid do you think I am?"

"It was worth a shot," I mumbled. I immediately regretted it. Why do I have to say what I think?

The next blow came really quickly. No seriously, really quickly. I couldn't hear or see anything coming, all I knew was that it hurt, a lot. My head slumped over to one side. My eyes closed. I couldn't focus or make sense of everything. And I thought I would always be the one to deliver the knockout punch…


	2. Haze

**Episode 2: Haze  
**

_Shamir village  
Central Somalia  
7 days earlier_

It was hot as hell on a Somali afternoon and the fires burning all around me didn't help. I squirted more water from my Camelbak into the shemagh I had wrapped around my face and blinked back tears from the acrid smoke scratching at my eyeballs. A hundred busses on a hundred dirty streets in Kabul may have been able to reproduce the sickly, oily, choking soot that hung heavy in the air.

Shamir was a mess. Huts were on fire; mud brick buildings and cinderblock shacks were smashed to bits like a demented child's Lego set. I looked down at my feet. Though the wind was still blowing the dry, red dust around, the markings in the ground were obvious, as were the burn marks on concrete foundations, the spent 12.7mm shell casings, and the shattered bits of brick blown far from their resting places. Tank treads. High explosive dual-purpose 125mm rounds. Heavy machine guns. We weren't dealing with a bunch of angsty teenage punks; we had trained professionals on our hands. I keyed my radio.

"Are you getting this, Beattie?" I said, letting my AKM assault rifle hang loose on its sling. Operating the radio with my left hand, I kept my shooting hand on the pistol grip and my head on a swivel.

"Yeah. Sorensen and I just completed a sweep of the north end of the village. The place is trashed. Whoever did this didn't want us to find anything."

"I'm going to go out on a limb here and say ICU," I said. I kept walking.

"Agreed. Did you find anything?"

"There's nothing here but smashed brick and burning wood; a few bloody patches, but no bodies."

"This is unusually thorough for ICU militia," Beattie mused. "They were pretty sloppy the last few times we dealt with them, and definitely not as well armed."

"Any ideas on why they did this?"

"I'm going to say it has something to do with your latest shenanigans in Abdullah's backyard…"

"Abdullah can kiss my ass," I spat. I wasn't a big fan of the warlord, but he was one of the more reasonable men we had dealt with. "I may have told him to go to Hell, but I don't think he'd be rash enough to resort to mass murder."

"We can't rule him out yet. Since there aren't any witnesses we don't have a complete picture of what happened."

"We'll see. Get back to the jeep. I'm going to look for Davison. We need to go over a few things," I said. As an afterthought I quickly added, "And watch for tripwires. I don't like putting puzzles together and I sure as hell don't like putting people back together."

"Roger that. Beattie, out," Beattie said, clicking his radio off.

I kept an eye out as I moved. The silence was eerie. All I heard were crackling flames, the crunch of my boots on dry dust, and the swish-swish of Cordura on Kevlar in my RRV. It was a curious development. We had seen raids before, but they usually didn't result in the complete and utter destruction of entire villages.

The Islamic Courts Union employed militia units to terrorize and control the local population. A few crazy men with money can go a long way when they start recruiting a lot of poor men with no education and no way out. Of course, not all rich men in the country were crazy. The sane ones were the guys we worked for, pulling security and investigating attacks on their assets. With no legitimate government in power, it was up to us to help maintain some semblance of order; by force if necessary.

"Davison, this is Speirs, check in," I said, keying my radio. I waited for a moment. He might have been taking a piss or smoking a cigarette. I figured I'd give him the benefit of the doubt. "Davison, this is Speirs, check in."

No response. I sighed, exasperated. I had warned Sorensen about taking in someone as green as Davison. When we put him through his paces, the kid just barely grasped basic tactics. If he wasn't as good a shot as he was we wouldn't have hired him at all. Sorensen said he was good, but he looked like an accident waiting to happen to me. He was nervous, easily distracted, and pretty damn scrawny; definitely not soldier material. I looked around. No sign of Davison. I guess I'd have to go find him myself.

I turned west and began moving through the broken stone and burning debris. The road was still mostly clear, allowing me to advance without having to claw my way through burning houses. The wind continued to blow smoke in my face, stinging my eyes, but my shemagh kept the bulk of it out of my lungs. My AKM sat steady in my hands, ready for action at a moment's notice. The ICU was known for not only their brutality, but their cunning in some circles. I wouldn't put it past them to leave a stay-behind ambush if they knew someone else would be coming. The smoke cleared slightly, revealing a lone silhouette standing at the edge of an irrigation ditch. It had to be Davison.

"Davison!" I shouted as I approached the west side of the village. His AKM was slung over his back, his hands at idle. The bastard was probably staring into space again, as he was apt to do. "Davison! Quit pissing around! Beattie and Sorensen are waiting back at the j-"

I stopped dead. The stench hit me like a sledgehammer, even overwhelming the oil smoke. I choked back tears as my eyes continued to burn from the assault of airborne particles. I had long ago learned to suppress my gag reflex upon the sight of blood or eviscerated animals and people. It was necessary in my line of work. But it still made my stomach turn whenever I saw stuff like this.

"Damn…" I said grimly. "I guess we found the bodies…"

The irrigation ditch was half full of tepid, putrid water. Flies buzzed in massive clouds around the bloated, decaying corpses of no less than two dozen individuals. I safed my weapon and slung it over my back. Anyone who was going to die had already been killed. I put a hand on Davison's shoulder.

"C'mon, kid, we're leaving."

"Speirs? I… I…" he stammered. Davison was visibly uneasy. Even in the afternoon heat, I could tell the blood had drained from his face. The kid was wigged out to the max.

"This isn't anything out of the ordinary, kid. You'll get used to it," I said, stony-faced. He would get used to it. But like me, he'd probably never get over it. I patted him on the shoulder and motioned with my head to the east. "C'mon, Beattie's going to think we stepped on a landmine."

"Y-yeah… j-just give me a mi-" Davison didn't even finish before he had to turn away to throw up. Davison collapsed to his knees, his retching eventually cutting over to dry heaves. I hesitated a moment, wanting to give him a hand, but shook my head and turned away. If he didn't learn to pick himself up, he'd never survive this business when the shit really hit the fan. I'd remind him later to appreciate the fact that people weren't shooting at him then.

"See you at the jeep, kid," I said as I started for the rendezvous point.


End file.
